Peak Oil Update - August 2008: Production Forecasts and EIA Oil Production Numbers
Posted by Khebab on September 13, 2008 - 7:00pm
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: ali morteza samsam bakhtiari, bp, chris skrebowski, eia, logistic, loglets, m. king hubbert, oil, original, rembrandt koppelaar, robelius, update [list all tags]
An update on the latest production numbers from the EIA along with graphs/charts of different oil production forecasts.
World oil production (EIA Monthly) for crude oil + NGL. The median forecast is calculated from 14 models that are predicting a peak before 2020 (Bakhtiari, Smith, Staniford, Loglets, Shock model, GBM, ASPO-[70,58,45], Robelius Low/High, HSM). 95% of the predictions sees a production peak between 2008 and 2010 at 77.5 - 85.0 mbpd (The 95% forecast variability area in yellow is computed using a bootstrap technique). Click to Enlarge.
Notations:
- mbpd= Million of barrels per day
- Gb= Billion of barrels (109)
- Tb= Trillion of barrels (1012)
- NGPL= Natural Gas Plant Liquids
- CO= Crude Oil + lease condensate
- NGL= Natural Gas Liquids (lease condensate + NGPL)
- URR= Ultimate Recoverable Resource
EIA Last Update (May)
Data sources for the production numbers:
- Production data from BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2006 (Crude oil + NGL).
- EIA data (monthly and annual productions up to May 2008) for crude oil and lease condensate (noted CO) on which I added the NGPL production (noted CO+NGL).
The all liquid peak is now May 2008 at 86.05 mbpd, the year to date average production value in 2008 (5 months) is up from 2007 for all the categories. The peak date for Crude Oil + Cond. is also May 2008 at 74.48 mbpd (see Table I below).
Fig 1.- World production (EIA data). Blue lines and pentagrams are indicating monthly maximum. Monthly data for CO from the EIA. Annual data for NGPL and Other Liquids from 1980 to 2001 have been upsampled to get monthly estimates. Click to Enlarge.
| Category | AUG 2008 | AUG 2007 | AUG 2006 | 12 MA1 | 2008 (5 Months) | 2007 (5 Months) | 2006 (5 Months) | Share | Peak Date | Peak Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All Liquids | 86.05 | 84.11 | 84.18 | 85.03 | 85.49 | 84.07 | 84.30 | 100.00% | 2008-05 | 86.05 |
| Crude Oil + NGL | 82.62 | 80.73 | 80.87 | 81.54 | 82.22 | 80.96 | 81.24 | 96.02% | 2008-05 | 82.62 |
| Other Liquids | 3.42 | 3.37 | 3.30 | 3.49 | 3.27 | 3.12 | 3.06 | 3.98% | 2007-06 | 3.81 |
| NGPL | 8.14 | 7.96 | 7.78 | 7.99 | 8.05 | 7.97 | 7.77 | 9.46% | 2008-05 | 8.14 |
| Crude Oil + Condensate | 74.48 | 72.77 | 73.09 | 73.54 | 74.17 | 72.98 | 73.47 | 86.56% | 2008-05 | 74.48 |
| Canadian Tar Sands | 1.10 | 1.09 | 1.02 | 1.19 | 1.16 | 1.15 | 1.06 | 1.28% | 2007-08 | 1.35 |
Table I -
Production
estimate
(in millions of barrels per day (mbpd)) up to May 2008 taken from
the EIA website (International
Petroleum Monthly). 1Average
on the last 12 months. Canadian tar sands production numbers are from
the NEB and includes updagraded and
non-upgraded bitumen.
Business as Usual
- EIA's International Energy Outlook 2006, reference case (Table E4, World Oil Production by Region and Country, Reference Case).
- IEA total liquid demand forecast for 2006 and 2007 (Table1.xls).
- IEA World Energy Outlook 2006 : forecasts for All liquids, CO+NGL and Crude Oil (Table 3.2, p. 94).
- IEA World Energy Outlook 2005 : forecast for All liquids (Table 3.5).
- IEA World Energy Outlook 2004 : forecast for All liquids (Table 2.4).
- A simple demographic model based on the observation that the oil produced per capita has been roughly constant for the last 26 years around 4.4496 barrels/capita/year (Crude Oil + NGL). The world population forecast employed is the UN 2004 Revision Population Database (medium variant).
- CERA forecasts for conventional oil (Crude Oil + Condensate?) and all liquids, believed to be productive capacities (i.e. actual production + spare capacity). The numbers have been derived from Figure 1 in Dave's response to CERA.
Fig 4.- Production forecasts assuming no visible peak. Click to Enlarge.
PeakOilers: Bottom-Up Analysis
- Chris Skrebowski's megaprojects database (see discussion here).
- The ASPO forecast from April newsletter (#76): I took the production numbers for 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2050 and then interpolated the data (spline) for the missing years. I added the previous forecast issued one year and two years ago (newsletter #58 and #46 respectively).
- Rembrandt H. E. M. Koppelaar (Oil Supply Analysis 2006 - 2007): "Between 2006 and 2010 nearly 25 mbpd of new production is expected to come on-stream leading to a production (all liquids) level of 93-94 mbpd (91 mbpd for CO+NGL) in 2010 with the incorporation of a decline rate of 4% over present day production".
- Koppelaar Oil Production Outlook 2005-2040 - Foundation Peak Oil Netherlands (November 2005 Edition).
- The WOCAP model from Samsam Bakhtiari (2003). The forecast is for crude oil plus NGL.
- Forecast by Michael Smith (was at the Energy Institute, now works for EnergyFiles) for CO+NGL, the data have been taken from this chart in this presentation (The Future for Global Oil Supply (1641Kb), November 2006.).
- PhD thesis of Frederik Robelius (2007): Giant Oil Fields - The Highway to Oil: Giant Oil Fields and their Importance for Future Oil Production. The forecasts (low and high) are derived from this chart.
- Forecast by TOD's contributor Ace, details can be found in this post.
Fig 5.- Forecasts by PeakOilers based on bottom-up methodologies. Click to Enlarge.
PeakOilers: Curve Fitting
The following results are based on a linear or non-linear fit of a parametric curve (most often a Logistic curve) directly on the observed production profile:- Professor Kenneth S. Deffeyes forecast (Beyond Oil: The View From Hubbert's Peak): Logistic curve fit applied on crude oil only (plus condensate) with URR= 2013 Gb and peak date around November 24th, 2005.
- Jean Lahèrrere (2005): Peak oil and other peaks, presentation to the CERN meeting, 2005.
- Jean Lahèrrere (2006): When will oil production decline significantly? European Geosciences Union, Vienna, 2006.
- Logistic curves derived from the application of Hubbert Linearization technique by Stuart Staniford (see this post for details).
- Results of the Loglet analysis.
- The Generalized Bass Model (GBM) proposed by Prof. Renato Guseo, I used his most recent paper (GUSEO, R. et al. (2006). World Oil Depletion Models: Price Effects Compared with Strategic or Technological Interventions ; Technological Forecasting and Social Change, (in press).). The GBM is a beautiful model that has been applied in finance and marketing science (see here for some background). The estimation in Guseo's article was based on BP data from 2004 (CO+NGL).
- The so-called shock model proposed by TOD's poster WebHubbleTelescope . You can find a description of his approach on his blog here as well as a review on TOD. The current estimate was done in 2005 based on BP's data (CO+NGL).
- The Hybrid Shock Model is a variant of the shock model described here. The forecast is based on EIA data (up to 2006) for crude oil + condensate, the ASPO backdated disovery curve and assumes no reserve growth and declining new discoveries.
Fig 6.- Forecasts by PeakOilers using curve fitting methodologies. Click to Enlarge.
| Forecast | Date | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2010 | 2015 | Diff2 | Peak Date | Peak Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All Liquids | |||||||||
| Observed (All Liquids) | 84.54 | 84.44 | 85.49 | NA | NA | 2008-05 | 86.05 | ||
| IEA (WEO) | 2004 | 83.74 | 85.41 | 87.08 | 90.40 | 98.69 | -2.34 | 2030 | 121.30 |
| IEA (WEO) | 2005 | 85.85 | 87.64 | 89.35 | 92.50 | 99.11 | -4.61 | 2030 | 115.40 |
| Koppelaar | 2005 | 85.78 | 86.61 | 87.60 | 89.21 | 87.98 | -2.86 | 2011 | 89.58 |
| Lahèrrere | 2005 | 84.47 | 85.23 | 85.87 | 86.96 | 87.77 | -1.12 | 2014 | 87.84 |
| EIA (IEO) | 2006 | 84.50 | 86.37 | 88.23 | 91.60 | 98.30 | -3.48 | 2030 | 118.00 |
| IEA (WEO) | 2006 | 85.10 | 86.62 | 88.17 | 91.30 | 99.30 | -3.42 | 2030 | 116.30 |
| CERA1 | 2006 | 89.52 | 91.62 | 93.75 | 97.24 | 104.54 | -9.01 | 2035 | 130.00 |
| Lahèrrere | 2006 | 84.82 | 85.96 | 87.02 | 88.93 | 92.27 | -2.27 | 2018 | 92.99 |
| Smith | 2006 | 87.77 | 90.88 | 94.38 | 98.94 | 98.56 | -9.63 | 2012-05 | 99.83 |
| Crude Oil + NGL | |||||||||
| Observed (EIA) | 81.28 | 81.01 | 82.22 | NA | NA | 2008-05 | 82.62 | ||
| GBM | 2003 | 76.27 | 76.33 | 76.20 | 75.30 | 67.79 | 5.16 | 2007-05 | 76.34 |
| Bakhtiari | 2003 | 80.89 | 80.89 | 80.24 | 77.64 | 69.51 | 1.12 | 2006 | 80.89 |
| ASPO-46 | 2004 | 80.95 | 80.80 | 80.59 | 80.00 | 73.77 | 0.78 | 2005 | 81.00 |
| ASPO-58 | 2005 | 82.03 | 83.10 | 84.05 | 85.00 | 79.18 | -2.69 | 2010 | 85.00 |
| Staniford (High) | 2005 | 77.92 | 78.31 | 78.63 | 79.01 | 78.51 | 2.74 | 2011-10 | 79.08 |
| Staniford (Med) | 2005 | 75.94 | 75.97 | 75.91 | 75.52 | 73.00 | 5.45 | 2007-05 | 75.98 |
| Staniford (Low) | 2005 | 70.13 | 69.71 | 69.20 | 67.92 | 63.40 | 12.17 | 2002-07 | 70.88 |
| IEA (WEO) | 2006 | 81.38 | 82.67 | 83.96 | 86.50 | 92.50 | -2.60 | 2030 | 104.90 |
| Koppelaar | 2006 | 82.31 | 83.68 | 85.60 | 91.00 | NA | -4.23 | 2010 | 91.00 |
| Skrebowski | 2006 | 81.45 | 82.62 | 84.20 | 87.35 | NA | -2.84 | 2010 | 87.95 |
| Smith | 2006 | 82.81 | 85.45 | 88.27 | 91.95 | 88.60 | -6.90 | 2011-02 | 92.31 |
| Loglets | 2006 | 82.14 | 83.02 | 83.74 | 84.65 | 83.26 | -2.38 | 2012-01 | 84.80 |
| ASPO-76 | 2006 | 79.00 | 81.35 | 85.06 | 90.00 | 85.00 | -3.70 | 2010 | 90.00 |
| Robelius Low | 2006 | 82.19 | 82.50 | 82.35 | 81.84 | 72.26 | -0.98 | 2007 | 82.50 |
| Robelius High | 2006 | 84.19 | 86.67 | 89.27 | 93.40 | 92.40 | -7.90 | 2012 | 94.54 |
| Shock Model | 2006 | 80.43 | 80.01 | 79.51 | 78.27 | 73.74 | 1.86 | 2003 | 81.17 |
| EWG | 2007 | 81.00 | 80.45 | 79.78 | 78.06 | 69.21 | 1.58 | 2005 | 81.41 |
| Crude Oil + Lease Condensate | |||||||||
| Observed (EIA) | 73.48 | 73.05 | 74.17 | NA | NA | 2008-05 | 74.48 | ||
| ASPO-46 | 2004 | 72.56 | 72.25 | 71.89 | 71.00 | 63.55 | 1.49 | 2005 | 72.80 |
| Deffeyes | 2004 | 69.92 | 69.83 | 69.64 | 69.01 | 65.98 | 3.73 | 2005-12 | 69.94 |
| ASPO-58 | 2005 | 73.80 | 74.65 | 75.39 | 76.00 | 69.50 | -2.02 | 2010 | 76.00 |
| IEA (WEO) | 2006 | 71.78 | 72.77 | 73.76 | 75.70 | 80.30 | -0.38 | 2030 | 89.10 |
| CERA1 | 2006 | 76.89 | 78.60 | 80.35 | 82.29 | 83.83 | -6.97 | 2038 | 97.58 |
| ASPO-76 | 2006 | 72.10 | 73.66 | 75.74 | 78.00 | 72.00 | -2.36 | 2010 | 78.00 |
| HSM | 2007 | 73.56 | 73.53 | 73.40 | 72.82 | 69.53 | -0.02 | 2006 | 73.56 |
| Ace | 2007 | 73.48 | 73.03 | 72.18 | 66.96 | 58.47 | 1.20 | 2006-01 | 73.55 |
Previous Update:
December 2007OilWatch last issue:
This is one of the most well put together reports I've seen yet. I really like the way you lay out the graphs and the data. I haven't gone through it with a fine toothed comb yet, but I wanted to commend your efforts.
Chris Martenson has done a great job of illustrating the value of various oil sources various oil sources. I highly recommend you watch his entire presentation.
Totally invalid apples and oranges comparisons again. Things that are different can not be compared, added, subtracted, multiplied or divided. If they are the result is silly nonsense.
Grain return on grain invested is a similar commodity related invalid concept. Also metal return on metal invested. Energy, grain and metal are groups of commodities which exist only in the abstract.
Corn can not be compared to soybeans. They are different. Each has a different price, use and characteristics. Iron can not be compared to gold for the same reasons. And wind can not be compared to oil or ethanol for the same reasons. They have different prices, unique characteristics and unique utilities.
Try buying grain, metal or energy. It can not be done. Only specific individual forms of energy, grain or metal can be traded in the real world. Energy in the abstract may be valid in a mathematical/physics sense but in exists only in its forms in the real world.
These forms are different. Energy out/energy in as invalid and useless as grain out/grain in or metal out/metal in.
Just because something can be measured and quantified does not mean that it can be compared validly. Logic rules numbers. When logic says the numbers are invalid, it makes no difference if they add up; they are wrong.
Why wasn't fossil fuel electricity included in these invalid comparisons?
Was it because it would make ethanol and hydrogen look good?
Logically, comparison is always possible. But your point that some comparisons give more insight than others is well taken.
Also, I see some value in some of the comparisons you say make no sense.
Methanol, Biodiesel, Tar sands, oil shale, corn ethanol all produce similar products. Lump together in right proportions (Biodiesel and ethanol) and you got three groups (Biodiesel and ethanol), (Tar sands), (Oil shale) that produce similar products although the byproducts are very different.
A short while ago oil was used to produce electricity so oil where used instead of sun and wind.
This is a misguided critique of Chris Martenson's comparisons. The point CM was making was about how much energy a society has left over to spare on discretionary uses. It really doesnt matter so much whether that energy be apple-energy or pear-energy if there's almost none anyway. And CM rightly points out that the solar and wind that are nicely up top cannot be poured into your tank anyway. (Not sure he mentions the scaling up problem but then it's a crash course.)
>>...solar and wind ... cannot be poured into your tank anyway<<
While solar and wind can not be poured into a gas tank, solar can be used to offset electricity demand through solar collectors for home heating and hot water. The resulting savings in electricity can be used to power an electric vehicle (EV). All this without increasing the need for more utility generators.
A typical sedan will go approximately 3 to 4 miles on a kilowatt hour of electricity. If 90% of us commute less than 30 miles, then we are talking about 10 KWhr which should be easy enough to save through home solar installations.
A while back, I roughly calculated that if the output from a PV array were fed directly into an EV, The payback at 15% efficiency was about 8 years. This is without any government subsidy. The trick is to be able to directly refuel your EV from solar.
After Gustav gets through with the Gulf infrastructure, and gasoline prices climb, EVs operating at 2 to 3 cents a mile will be looking good. The good news is that a number of conversion shops are starting to spring up and a number of new and old car companies have EV and Plug in Hybrid EVs (PHEV) on the way.
Conversion shops are started where someone asks their mechanic if they would convert a car or truck to all electric. Amp Mobile Conversions (http://www.ampmobileconversions.com/) was started this way. In other cases a person picks up a copy of "Convert It" by Micheal Brown and Sheri Prange and does it themselves. When successful, the person is sometimes asked to do one for a neighbor.
Companies such as IBM and Cisco are putting in electrical outlets in their parking lots for free for employees who drive EVs. If you drive an EV, ask your employer if you can plug in or if they would install an electrical outlet for you.
Nanosolar is now concentrating on 2-10MW systems, which are low cost.
The installation of one of these systems, which many factories and offices have enough roof space for, would allow their workers cars to be recharged at considerably less cost than home systems - both because maintenance and operation are cheaper at this scale, and because the charging could take place during the day when the car is at work.
In hot areas it has even been found that people are prepared to pay enough for shaded parking that it can pay for a solar covering to the car park!
Nissan, Renault, Mitsubishi and lately Toyota have announced plans for mass production of EV's.
The first ones are due in 2009.
Luxury Electric claim that their car can be charged in 10minutes for a 140mile run from a normal power outlet,although how the heck they put that much power through a normal outlet is not clear.
http://www.transport20.com/electric-vehicle/luxury-electric-to-drive-a-l...
Luxury Electric to drive a long-range electric car across the U.S.A. » Transport 2.0
You can't logically ignore the capital costs of solar and wind. Both are around $3/watt and work only 20% of time so you need $15/watt. You lose atleast 20% energy during the most efficient storage (batteries) so the cost is $18.75/watt. Then add the maintenance cost which would be atleast 12.5% of the capital cost, so the total cost is %21/watt. Then add the cost of the battery which would be atleast 12.5% of the cost above. This takes the total cost to about $24/watt.
This system work for 30 years before total replacement and produce:
30 years x 365 days/year x 86400 second/day = 947 MJ energy
Each one dollar in gdp consumes 10 MJ energy (divide world/country/province gdp by world/country/province energy consumption) so each watt capacity above contributes $94.7 over a period of 30 years.
This is a ROI of less than 400% in 30 years or a linear 13.16%/year or an exponential 5%/year. Thats ROI in overall GDP of country. Given that each barrel of oil contributes about $600 in gdp and maximum per barrel oil price in history is $150 which is 25% of its contribution in gdp we can assume that the owner of solar cells or wind mill will only get at maximum 3.25% linear ROI per year.
I got one reply wiped as the site went down, but briefly, there is plenty of power available at least in the States to run EV's or hybrid's without extending the grid or solar, according to a recent study 84% of cars could be hybrid before the grid would need improving.
On the specifics of solar as suggested, thin film from First Solar costed around $1.29 watt in 2007 - figures are not available for Nanosolar.
PV maintenance costs are also low - and the configuration suggested is optimised for this.
The power also would not need transmitting or stepping down, as it is produced exactly where it is needed, saving cost, and although intermittency means it is only available 20% of the time, that is exactly when it is wanted.
The batteries are also paid for in the price of the car, or by a battery hire system which works out a lot cheaper than petrol.
Your calculations also take no account of the far greater efficiency of running an electric car rather than an ICC car, so you need a fraction of the power - only around 1kwh for 3-4 miles.
Finally, you appear to take no account of the inefficiencies of power generation with fossil fuels, which is 40% if you are lucky, and so counteracts around half of your losses for the 20% efficiency of solar due to intermittency.
But all that lot falls very short of an answer to that opening phrase. There's a huge investment in things with gasoline/diesel etc tanks, not just millions of cars but also other rather pricey vehicles and machines. And then there's the supply infrastructure to be added. All that lot amounts to a daunting investment even for a thriving economy let alone one which is in substantial recession. Most of those empty tanks are not going to find electric replacements, my bet. And hence as I stated, C Martenson's point is valid.
I would not see at smooth transition to an all-electric fleer of vehicles in a use pattern similar to todays' either.
But the good news is that this is because we have made a mess of the financial environment, and fatally delayed transiting from fossil fuels.
This means that most will probably be using electric bikes and scooters rather than being able to afford a car, but delivery vehicles, emergency vehicles and taxis should be perfectly capable of being run.
This is a much brighter future than one where that is not the case, and has the additional advantage that the power requirements of this use are even lower than for EV cars, so the grid will need less power and we have more time to build alternative generating capacity.
Is it just me, or are things seeming a little more urgent lately?
A great example of how limited our predictions for the future can be. Perhaps it has been mentioned before on TOD but I, like many others I'm betting, had typically thought of EVs being recharged at home because the recharging cycle could be scheduled for off peak generation. Recharging during working hours has its problems in stressing the electric grid and peak generation capacity.
Solar generated electric has a long way to go with regards to cost per watt. (I think that is the measure:) Home solar is still a niche market and more of a good faith effort to move solar forward than to save money. By taking advantage of the commercial scale of solar installation and integrating it into the company's workplace as either a cost free benefit (perhaps the IRS would be willing to not tax the value of that benefit:) or a low cost benefit that helps to subsidize the installation costs is a win win situation. Not to mention a huge shot in the arm for the solar industry.
Let's take it one step further and consider the problem of compressed natural gas replacing a significant portion of gasoline usage. That problem being distribution of refueling facilities. Let's put in natural gas fueling facilities on company parking lots. Again, you have the advantage of scale (if the number of work vehicles is large enough). It will be a balancing act between the number of pumps vs the number of vehicles and how many need to fuel up each day. Still, think of the huge number of gas stations throughout the country that don't have the customer volume to add natural gas. Medium to large companies can help considerably in achieving the critical mass of fueling stations for natural gas to take off.
The thought of using canopies as a dual system to reduce heat buildup in cars and as a platform for solar panels solves the not insignificant problem of protecting the users of a charging station from being electrocuted during a rain storm. You also solve the square footage limitation on company building rooftops to install solar panels on.
I don't want to imply this is a done deal. I'm saying there are a significant number of ways to think a bit outside the box and some will be home runs. Leaving many of us to slap our heads and say "why didn't I think of that!"
Hmm, parking garages?
In London they have been trialling a system with public points for recharging, and there have been no reports of fried drivers that I have heard of!
Correct design appears to be able to deal with that one.
As for the cost of solar power, if you are recharging cars at work you have the not-inconsiderable advantage of having the power right where you want if, right when you want it.
In Berlin the system they are putting in there will be able to accept current back from the cars, so that sophisticated charging/discharging systems can use some of the vast storage capacity that would be available to balance out very short term fluctuations in the grid.
A lot of he synergies seem to be very hopeful.
Fossil fueled anything isn't sustainable, and that most definitely includes ethanol ... and ethanol produced using ethanol as an energy input is totally impractical ... and on Earth hydrogen is not a fuel but a battery, so it will never look good as a fuel.
Do you even understand where the word Fossil comes from?
Hint, it doesn't come from any step in Ethanol production.
Not advocating nothing here, just making sure idiocies don't spread out too much.
Err ... Mr 'Troll' .... just to make sure idiocies don't spread out too much ... I think you will find that the agricultural equipment, road transport, agrichemicals, fertilizer, natural gas etc used in the manufacture of ethanol from corn are ALL fossil fueled and manufactured and mined using fossil fuels, and ethanol from oil refineries definitely comes from fossil fuel!
Do you understand how crops are grown, ethanol is made or liquid fuels containing 'net energy' are obtained ... from your comments, I think not?
Oh ... and if you think that 'net exports' of crude + concentrate (the stuff that fuels most of the world's transport and the stuff that 'Peak oil' is about, not 'all liquids') haven't peaked you are TOTALLY wrong.
That's not completely true. A fair bit of mining machinery(draglines, pumps, crushers, conveyors, slurry pipelines...) used in mineral fertilizer production, rail roads(not so much in the US), grain elevators etc. commonly use electrical power. Much of grid power is derived from fission and hydro; that which is derived from coal can quite easily be replaced with fission without any technological breakthroughs or inventions(ask France or Sweden).
I think you will find that the mining machinery, pumps, crushers, conveyors, slurry pipes, hydro dams, nuclear reactors, rail roads, grain elevators and even windmills all use FF somewhere in their manufacture, or the workers do in their vehicles, even if the electricity comes from nuclear (which, in most countries, it doesn't).
At present fossil fuel is ubiquitous and I think you will find, if you ask the French, that during construction and decommissioning of nuclear power stations a lot of fossil fuel is used.
I think you'll find that nearly all energy sources use nearly all other energy sources somewhere in their production. The amounts involved in the case of nuclear and hydro are trivial; see for instance vattenfall's EPD data for their nuclear plants.
Hydro is indeed quite low. But not nuclear. Denholm has investigated the literature and found various flaws in lifecycle analysis. These were corrected and nuclear was found to require between 0.1 and 0.3 kWh thermal for every kWh electrical output. That is definately not trivial. But doable.
Eh, life is not sustainable for inevitably you die.
Sustainability is a red herring.
You use what you got.
When it runs out you find something else.
If you want to build intricate, delicate societies predicated on sustainable supply of anything, you got heap big problems in your basic model.
You are all looking for the perfect world where nothing challenges your comfort and desires.
"You are all looking for the perfect world where nothing challenges your comfort and desires".
Not me. A simpler world would suffice... Do we really need ALL those gadgets, the ability to fly anywhere anytime, fast food, huge investment portfolio... ?
Nah. Good friends, loving family, food on the plate. That'll do.
Regards, Matt B
All the EROEI hysteria is non-sensical, so your comment isn't even a red herring. With a red herring, people notice there is a problem. Not so here on TOD, where Olduvai and "Relocalization" is the dogmatic truth, and EROEI, Jevon's Paradox, Demand Destruction "attrition" (or whatever), and other things like that are mantras that are part of the ritual of gathering in here and spewing pessimistic excel scenarios while uttering frantically the expressions "oh, OMFSM, we are so fukd'up! We're so gonna die!"
Appeals to emotion, excluded middles, dead wrong economical analyses, etc., etc.
And a vote system to easily herd the sheep to automatically "censor" questioning comments without actual censoring.
Spewing pessimistic excel scenarios? lol.
And yet you feel the need to attack what's going on here on this forum? Hey, at least we can type and (presumably) find the United States on a globe. It gets much worse...
Curiously, I think most of the posters here are far too optimistic...
I see a massive systematic extermination being carried out on a global scale against the entire species. Everyone's bodies are infected with a hundred different industrial chemicals, swarming with genetically modified bacteria, and being bombarded by ungodly amounts of electromagnetic radiation. But of course it's all just a random set of coincidences and unintended consequences. There's no malice in this! Like I said, I think most of the posters here are far too optimistic...
There's a word for you: paranoia times infinity.
I know you are, but what am I? (a schoolyard taunt or a Shakespearean Zen koan?)
Dear Luisdias,
If you would like to express an opinion that's listened to, try not to start it with insults. Not only is it impolite, it tends to put off the folks who would normally be interested in what you have to say. That’s because when you start with insults, folks will tend to write you off as a person who just yells but doesn't have anything concrete to contribute. I find quite a wide range of opinions expressed here and calling them names just won't fly with folks who are using mathematical models as the basis of their work. If you can point out a flaw, then do so.
And just to restate it here in simple terms, there are three basic issues that this Blog seems to concentrate on (Mind you, I'm just a reader):
1) When will world oil production peak?
2) How steep will the roll of be? (The minimum forecast is 2 % to 4% per year)
3) What will we do when it happens? Or stated another way,
Will natural market forces handle the situation or do we need to act together?
That’s it. And as a result they are called Pessimists, Malthusians, Crisaholics, Doomtards and quite a variety of other names I won’t bother to repeat. And for some reason, these three questions create enormous emotional reactions folks like you who (I’m guessing) feel that the market will always handle any situation. And that’s despite the fact that there are many historical examples where it did not: The Great Chicago Fire, The 1917 Flue Pandemic, Wall Street Crash & the Great Depression, WW1, Pearl Harbor & WW2, Korea. The Cold war, AIDS, False SEC filing & Enron’s collapse, 9/11, Katrina and other natural disasters, etc.
As far as EROEI, historical data shows that in until the last few decades, oil companies only had to spend 100:1 to 30:1 of the oil they got out of the ground to produce more, all processing and infrastructure included. Unfortunately, industry wide, EROEI is now heading for 4:1 or 25% of the total (Heavy sour crude, Oil shale, tar sands, outer continental shelf oil, etc.) and production costs have skyrocketed from $1 to $15/bbl to as much as $90/bbl or more & oil's price has risen over $100/bbl 20 years before the optomistic organizations said it would (EIA, IEA, CERA, etc.) That’s an enormous change and, according to folks like you (I'm guessing again), peak oil is still decades away.
How will this affect our industrial society, which is used to only spending 1% to 3% on production and $15 to $30/bbl? You can rail that its nothing to worry about, but if you were a business manager and your production cost increased by a factor of 7 while output fell by 22%, your boss would absolutely expect you to run the numbers to see what both the short and long term effects were.
That’s all the folks here are doing. If you can prove them wrong, they would be thrilled. So try an analytical approach rather than personal attacks, and you will find many willing listeners.
NOTE: CERA and IEA, EIA and other optimistic organizations have stated that the minimum roll off in world oil production will be around 2%. For each 1% roll off, the U.S. energy lost is equivalent to building 16 1GW nuclear power plants each year (7.6 Gbbl x 1% = 76 million bbls/year. 1 GW NPP = 4.5 MMbbl/year). This would consume all of the NPP’s that Senator McCain has proposed to build over 20 yeas in just three, and require 3x as much money annually as Senator Obama has proposed, hence the condern.
I was attacking the blog and making a claim that this is hysterical nonsense. It's nothing personal whatsoever. My problem with this is that there is allegedly millions of readers of this site, and it gets me off by knowing that crazy doomster rationales are being promoted to scare people to death. It's been a while since I've seen this site behaving level-handed and "rationally". Economists are called shills and blow-jobbers, but then the editors feel the need to fill the gap in the economic analysis, resulting not in extensive and comprehensive studies (professionals), but with school yard junk science theories about demand destruction (which wouldn't pass on the very first year) and the likes.
I am no economist, but it is easy even for me to attest that the authors know nothing more of economics than lay people do. And yet, they don't refrain from calling the collapse of the economy! Are you kidding me?
I wouldn't have the time to do anything more. And so you know, I've been probably a much, much longer reader and poster than you are (I don't really care, so I won't check it) and I do know the "issues" quite well. I fully disagree with your "minimum forecast of 2% to 4% per year", it goes against all the main peak oil theory, which predicts an almost bell-shaped production curve of petroleum, but it is one of those maintained mantras in this blog, without any backup whatsoever of evidence. And anytime they predict stuff, things happen exactly the contrary. So why do people still take seriously this kind of rethorics?
Those guys are people who object that there are pretty available solutions right now to the issues at hand, and that by a mix of government leadership and market entrepreneurship, things are doable. By a doomtard, I take people that only look at the bad things of the universe, while ignoring the good news, and still think they are the best positioned to make a good analysis. I love how TOD makes its monthly oil report with the worst message graph they can find in the report. If it is the production which is telling the bad news, go ahead and put it in the first page. If it is the oil stock, then be it so. This is subliminal, and is permanent. Doomsters are people that tell you that in no way oil will top 2005 production, and when you present 2008 numbers, they tell you, "but that was the market, not geology, and that was so low, there's no way we're gonna make it". It's stupid.